The Journey Home
by NorahB
Summary: Michael emerges from his pod two years before the others and grows up separately in Las Cruces, NM. Max, Isabel, and Tess all grow up together in Roswell. In 2003, Michael finally gets a vision and ventures to Roswell to investigate his origins. His arrival is the catalyst for things getting weird.
1. Prologue

**The Journey Home**

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to anything Roswell. I'm not making any money off this. This is just for fun.

AU with aliens.

Pairings that I may explore:

Michael/Isabel, Michael/Charlotte (original character) and hints of Michael/Maria. Max/Liz and Max/Tess. Isabel/Jesse. Friendly to all characters and pairings.

You might want to note that while romance will play a role in the narrative, it will often take a backseat to the action, to politics and/or sci/fi elements, and to general character development.

 **Premise**

Michael emerges from his pod two years before the others and grows up separately in Las Cruces, NM. Max, Isabel and Tess all grow up together in Roswell, and the dynamic is similar to the dynamic between Max, Isabel and Michael on the original show. None of the Royal Four ever call attention to themselves, and so neither the FBI nor enemy aliens nor even Nasedo get involved in their lives. They may in the future, but they haven't yet. In addition, we haven't seen the message from Zan and Vilandra's mother, and so our hybrids don't know that they are "The Royal Four."

Liz does get shot in 1999, and Max heals her, but because Tess mind warps the entire restaurant into believing that nothing really happened, the sheriff and FBI etc. are not involved.

All of the above is backstory. In the present it is 2003, four years after Liz is shot. Michael finally gets a vision and ventures to Roswell to investigate his origins. At this point he is 22 and the other hybrids are 20. Michael's arrival is the catalyst for things getting weird.

 **Prologue**

1987

Before he had a name, he was just a small creature climbing out of a sticky incubation pod, reaching his arms through the membrane, breathing in air for the first time. He didn't know who or what he was. He didn't know where he was or where he was going. But he did know that he needed to go out. As he scanned the cave where his pod was, he saw three other creatures in sticky pods of their own. Later he would realize that these were two girls and a boy like himself, who all looked a bit younger than he was. At the time, he went to each pod in turn and knocked on the outer face, hoping to wake up its inhabitant. But they all just slept on. Finally he turned away, and saw on the cave wall a handprint. Not knowing why, he stuck out his hand and rested his palm on the print. The wall opened up, revealing a starlit desert landscape. No moon that night, but he didn't know what the moon was yet. He climbed out of the cave and then gingerly down the rocks that led to the desert ground.

He was naked, but he had no concept of nakedness or clothes, of modesty or indecency.

A strange creature raced down a black strip of land. It had two bright lights on the front of it, and he instinctively shied away from those lights, hiding behind a rock. Later he would realize that it was a car. Later he would wonder how differently his life might have turned out if he had gone up to the road and been found right then and there. He might have grown up with the others. Perhaps he would even have been adopted by a nice family who saw him on the road, like two of the others were. But he did not trust the creature with the bright lights. And so he hid, from it and all other creatures. Not knowing what else to do, he walked, following the black strip of land that the cars sped down, but staying a good ways away so that he could hide whenever anyone passed by. When at last he got into a town, he scavenged for food, knowing hunger without knowing the word.

He walked for five days, until his feet were almost raw and he was sunburned everywhere. He finally collapsed from hunger and exhaustion, and was found by the side of the road by a rough-spoken but kind police officer who bundled the poor boy in a blanket and took him to an orphanage. There a woman tended to his body and when he woke up she tended to his soul. She was the first person who spoke to him, and she worried when he didn't speak. He seemed unable to. But after only a few days he was speaking in broken English. A few weeks later he was fluent. Still, he could tell them nothing of his background, not where his parents were or where he was from or even his name. When he spoke of the pod chamber, the adults smiled indulgingly but asked him to not make up stories. After a short time, he stopped talking about the pod chamber. And soon he seemed like an ordinary boy. More or less. He worked hard to be ordinary. He grew tired of the attention he got from adults and children alike, grew tired especially of the other children's teasing. Besides that, he had an instinct to blend in, to not call attention to himself, to survive by seeming to be like everybody else. And so he blended.

The nurse gave him a name. Michael, after the archangel because he seemed to have fallen from the sky. She hoped that he would be adopted, but for all his blending he still seemed odd. He was so determined to keep to himself, to not trust anyone else, even her, that he seemed cool and prickly when prospective parents came to see the children. They always picked someone else. So, it was a foster home for Michael, and a last name chosen at random. Guerin. Michael Guerin.

He wouldn't return to the place of his birth for many years. In fact, until he was a young adult he had no idea where it even was.


	2. Chapter 1: Another Alien

**Chapter One: Another Alien**

2003

He wasn't green. The baby wasn't green. He had two eyes, two arms, and two legs. All his other parts seemed to be normal. The doctors and nurses had left the room, and finally they were alone, just the three of them. Michael and his wife let out twin sighs of relief. Michael sat beside her on the edge of the hospital bed, holding his newborn son. He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead, whispering in her ear, "Thank god." The ultrasounds had all been normal. But he'd still worried each day and night of the nine-month pregnancy. If it had been up to him, they would have had no ultrasounds, no doctors involved. Maybe they would have hidden in a cave for nine months. But she had insisted on handling everything like other people would, as if they were people who never worried about a baby turning out green. Michael thought that she was convinced that everything would be fine if she just believed hard enough.

Now, Charlotte nodded, smiling with her whole body. Sweat dripped down her face, and he knew that though she was worn out both emotionally and physically, she was happy. She seemed about to say something when the baby opened his eyes. Michael looked into those blue eyes, searching for the person his son would grow into.

Suddenly, images flashed through Michael's mind. He drew in his breath sharply. He struggled to not pass out or drop the baby or both. Instead he clung to his little son, trying to shield the child from the intensity he was feeling.

It was a barrage of images and emotions so varied and intense that it felt like a confused jumble of all the emotions on any spectrum: joy and sorrow, fear and anger, grief, contentment, exuberance, uneasiness, anxiety, et cetera et cetera: every emotion he'd ever felt and then there were new feelings. These new feelings were alien to him, but like the others they were both positive and negative, both creative and destructive.

The images would stay etched in his mind for many years.

A young man, dark-haired and somber. Two young women, both blonde, one tall and willowy, the other tiny and pixie-like. There he was with these three in the desert, and it was like being home. Then the scene changed. A battle raged; Michael was at the front of what seemed like a small army, shouting orders, displaying a strength he wasn't sure he was capable of. Flashes of deaths, of people he'd never met but who seemed important to him being blasted into the air by—he didn't know what. Michael raising his right hand and directing a powerful blast of energy at a masked man who crumpled to the ground. Michael, bloody and injured, grabbing the willowy blonde and kissing her fiercely. Charlotte sitting beside him in bed, speaking urgently. Charlotte standing with a two year-old boy in her arms, screaming at him and shutting the door in his face. Michael sitting at a bar with the somber dark-haired man, laughing and making this man crack a smile.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, it was over. He opened his eyes. Charlotte stared at him, confused and worried but not terrified. The flashes had lasted only a minute or so. He hadn't cried out. He hadn't collapsed or dropped the baby. To her perhaps it was just a headache.

"Michael?" she asked. "What just happened?"

"I don't know."

"Tell me."

"I think I've just lost too much sleep the last couple nights."

She smiled. It was 5 am after all. Neither of them had had any sleep for almost 48 hours. "Why don't you stretch out on the sofa there?" she said. "I think the baby will sleep in my arms."

"What about you?"

"I'm too wired." Charlotte reached for the remote, which was attached to the bed. She turned on the TV and began flipping through channels. "I'll find a movie to watch. You: sleep. Now."

He nodded. Gave her the baby. Kissed the baby. Kissed his wife. Lay down on the sofa, kicking off his shoes as he did so. Michael stretched his long legs over the edge, closed his eyes, and pretended to sleep. Talk about being wired. He was buzzing all over. Absentmindedly, not even fully conscious of his movements, he wiggled his fingers and touched his thumb to each finger in turn. He could feel energy building up in his hand. If he just raised that hand and directed the energy, he could shatter the TV's face. But as always he contained his energy in public places. Hell, he hardly did anything "other" (Charlotte's word) in private. Now Michael could feel a primal instinct to blast holes everywhere, and to do other things like manipulating the molecular structure of this sofa, turning it into a bench or maybe just a more comfortable sofa. He'd felt that instinct before, but never this intensely. He had never before been on the verge of losing control.

Michael clenched his jaw. Whatever was happening would end. Whatever was happening would not change him. Whatever was happening must have some logical explanation. His body buzzed as Charlotte put the baby in the bassinette by her bed. She curled up and fell asleep. Michael felt fatigue weighing his body down. But even if he could sleep, he was terrified of sleep now. If those flashes could come to him when he was fully awake, what would happen when he gave up control of his body and mind, when he fell into unconsciousness? And so he willed himself to stay awake. His body still buzzing, Michael got up quietly, stealthily. Without making a sound, he dug through Charlotte's bag to find a sketchbook and pencil he'd stashed, to use if there was any downtime.

He crept to the door. Once he was outside, he almost ran down the hall. He resisted the temptation to blast holes in the walls, the ceiling, the floor. When he almost ran into an empty hospital bed, he resisted the temptation to turn it bright red. He wondered if he could shrink the bed until it was a the size of a piece of dollhouse furniture, but he decided that even trying would be a very bad idea. He didn't usually think like this. His whole body was positively on fire.

He was looking for a place where he could sit and not wake up his wife and child. After what seemed like an endless search, he found the hospital's cafeteria. It was mostly empty.

Michael sat at a table in the corner, sipping a cup of black coffee, as he pulled open the sketch book. Surprisingly calm now, he drew scene after scene, his lines heavy and deliberate, his work much more meticulous than usual. With every fiber of his being, Michael worked to purge these images from his mind.

It didn't work. Each drawing became more and more detailed, and brought about another drawing. When they came home from the hospital, to their apartment, he just continued to sketch whenever he had a chance. He wasn't sure if he was seeing more images, or if he had seen them already in the flash of insanity when he connected with his son. Connected—that seemed to be the word for it. He had connected with another person in a way that he'd never done before, never imagined that he could. He spent three days avoiding the baby's eyes. He did all the things that he was supposed to do—changed diapers, fed him bottles in the middle of the night to give Charlotte a rest, and so forth—but never looking him in the eye. Newborns don't open their eyes much, so it really wasn't that difficult. And it was no big deal to take on the night-time feedings, as he wasn't sleeping anymore. Sleep was too dangerous. Michael didn't think he was crazy, but he was terrified of scaring Charlotte. And so he stayed awake. Drawing in any spare moments, until he had filled the sketchbook and started another. Soon, he was creating a whole world with these drawings.

They named the baby Jack, after Charlotte's father.

Michael didn't know why Charlotte didn't notice his nervousness, the edge in his voice when he talked to her, or the way he pulled away from her embraces. Perhaps she was just too tired. He didn't know why he was hiding this from her, but he was keeping the sketchbooks in his sock drawer now. It wasn't like he hadn't opened up to her before. She knew the rest of his secrets. She alone knew about his "birth" in the pod chamber, about his strange abilities, and his suspicions of where he had actually come from. But now that he had connected with Jack, Michael was aware of this huge gulf between his wife and himself. He was different. Jack was different. Charlotte was not one of them.

The fourth night he sat up with the baby, holding him for most of the night, the tiny head on his shoulder, the tiny body in the crook of his arm. With his right hand he tried to sketch, but it wasn't really working, and so he gave up on drawing, got up from the table, and collapsed onto the old brown recliner, the baby resting on his chest. He would just close his eyes for a moment.

Michael's dreams were hazy, and surprisingly gentle. He floated through wisps of clouds. He drank lemonade in the desert. He drove on a long windy road through that endless desert. He stood on a cliff with that willowy blonde, who wore a dress of silk so blue it was almost like it was made of the sky. She grabbed his hand and led him to a big group of young people. Michael followed her. As he was almost to the group, he turned back in the direction he had come. On the other side of the cliff, Charlotte stood with Jack in her arms. She was shouting something at him. She didn't look angry. But was that disappointment on her face? And what was she shouting?

"Michael!" came Charlotte's voice now.

He jerked awake, and felt the baby stir on his chest. "I didn't do anything," he said as he adjusted Jack's position.

"You turned the chair blue," she said, upset and amused at the same time.

He looked down. It was the color of the sky, like that dress in his dream. "I guess I did."

"Well at least you finally got some sleep."

"What are you talking about?"

"I know you haven't slept since Jack was born. I'm not stupid."

He sighed. Then asked why she had woken him up if she thought he should sleep.

"Your fingers were twitching wickedly. I thought you were about to turn the whole room blue."

He laughed. Giving the baby to Charlotte, he placed his hand on the recliner in a deliberate way and willed his energy to flow into the fabric, turning it back to a muddy brown. Charlotte didn't think it was the right muddy brown, so he spent another half hour trying out various shades until she was happy that the chair had been restored to its original color. She didn't ask about the sketchbooks. He thought that she had seen them, but he couldn't be sure.

Later that day, he sat at the kitchen table with Charlotte. She held Jack in her arms. Jack was sleeping. Michael was telling a story about some stupid show he'd seen on TV in the middle of one of his sleepless nights. Michael reached out and touched Jack's hand. The baby wrapped his tiny fingers around Michael's index finger. Suddenly, the baby opened his eyes. It was the first time Michael had seen those eyes since that first morning in the hospital room. They were still blue. He didn't pull his gaze away in time, and once again Michael was flung into a flash of images and intense feelings. What was it about connecting with his son that brought about this almost violent reaction? Was Jack seeing anything?

This time the flash was less chaotic. Michael saw himself in a crowded diner. It was some kind of cheesy, alien-themed restaurant, but it did have a bit of kitschy charm. A waitress came up to him. She wore a shiny green dress and a headband with antennae sticking up. "What can I get for you?"

He just stared. He'd seen this girl somewhere before.

"Hey Liz!" a voice called out. The girl turned and Michael's gaze followed hers. The dark-haired young man and the willowy blonde had just walked into the restaurant.

"Well I'm be damned," he muttered under his breath. He glanced down at his menu to try to collect himself. He'd done it. He'd found them. He wondered if they had been looking for him. Of all the places in the world to find them, he'd found them in this haven of alien kitsch.

"First time in Roswell?" the waitress was asking.

And then he snapped out of it. Charlotte was staring, really staring this time. He was so excited he didn't care. He let go of Jack's hand and jumped up.

"Roswell," he said out loud.

There was an atlas somewhere on their bookshelf, the one where he'd drawn out possible routes he could have taken when he'd come out of the pod all those years ago. He had a fairly good memory of the walk itself. He'd been trying to find that cave for a long time, and one of its possible locations was outside of Roswell. He was sure of it.

"What are you doing?" Charlotte asked.

"I'm looking for something."

"In Roswell. As in Roswell, New Mexico?"

"Yup."

"What's there?" After a long pause she whispered, "The pod chamber?"

"Among other things."

"What other things?"

"I'm having visions, okay?" Michael snapped at her.

He'd found the atlas. He'd opened it to the right page. And there it was, a route traced out, mostly on US-70 and US-54, from Roswell to Las Cruces. He could have come that way. He'd measured the walk to be about three days if you were an adult marching straight through, without sleeping. He knew he hadn't slept the whole time he'd been out there. And he knew he'd walked for five days. He remembered each sunrise and sunset. He knew he'd walked as fast as he could. Yes, he could have come that way.

9


End file.
